Muslim rapper offers alternative to present-day music

(QHA) - Hip hop artist Mo Sabri began a recent performance in Washington, DC, with “Heaven Is Where Her Heart Is”, a song about a virtuous girl who travels to Mecca for the holy Muslim pilgrimage. For the past year, Sabri has been singing about pious themes in a genre not exactly known for godly messages, reports VOA.
“There are too many songs on the radio these days encouraging girls to do bad things,” he told the audience of Muslim families attending the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which included screaming girls who were obviously excited by the 22-year-old Muslim hearththrob.
The son of Pakistani immigrants, Sabri grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee. He's one of a growing cadre of young Muslim American musicians who write “anaasheed,” or songs with religious Islamic themes, that are beginning to appeal to a broader audience.
According to him the song, "I believe in Jesus," was written to show the people of east Tennessee that Muslims revere him.
“I grew up in an area that did not really have any Muslims, and I was able to see that they were all more similar than different,” Sabri said. “For me, I was like, 'I want to reach out to my neighbors and show that Muslims and Christians as a whole can experience what I experienced.”
As reported, one of Sabri’s latest songs got more than one million views on YouTube.